What is there to lose little Sparrow?
by Max Sinclair
Summary: How I accidentally achieved the goth achievement. Inspired by the "good" hero ending of Fable II I wrote this story to express the sorrow.


**What is there to lose little Sparrow?**

_by Max Sinclair_

"Hero among Heroes,  
the People of Albion, an  
organization formed by  
representatives from every  
region in the land and every  
walk of life, thanks you for  
your selfless acts in the Tattered  
Spire.

We don't pretend to  
understand the events that  
took place there, yet all that  
matters is that those who were  
taken from us are alive. To  
celebrate their return, and  
commemorate your heroic  
deed, we have erected a statue  
in your honour. We hope you  
like it.

- The People of Albion."

But some grief is so great even death must keep its distance.

I stood in old Bowerstone staring up at a statue of my younger self. It stood in my most heroic pose dressed in full plate armour. It seemed indestructible and undefeatable. It mocked me.

"Excuse me. May I please have your autograph?" A little girl in pigtails asked me in a mouse of a voice. With false humor I entertained the children with puppets and music. Once, I had performed honestly for hours for Ross and his friends. My face painted, my head shrouded, there is no joy in the dance. The children laugh and play.

Passing the shops and stores the citizens heartily shouted their admiration and gratitude. Once, there was a dog for them to pet and he would back a jubilant chorus to their cheers. I turned up my old street. I couldn't enter the house. Silently, I placed a "for rent" sign and walked past into the beautiful gardens of Fairfax castle. The magnificence was haunted by another statue mocking me. It had been erected after I returned from ten years in the Spire. The commandant's voice joined the statue's condescension, "I'm going to strike you and you will thank me."

"Beg me to strike you again."

"Kill him!"

"You will obey!"

Ten years. Thanks for the statue.

On the steps of the castle I was greeted by the false smile of the butler. His eyes reflected clearly the terror his manner masked. Everyone close to me lay bloody and broken. He doesn't wish to join them. "My Queen, please excuse my temerity, but I have prepared your bedroom. The regal bolster is said to have wondrous powers for restoring one's health and spirit."

I smile despite myself, flashing back to the Shadow Court.

Deep below a haunted marsh teeming with banshees and hollow men through twisting catacombs filled with the animated corpse of a village sacrificed for one man's immortality and their lich lords lay the Shadow Court.

In a deep chasm overlooked by countless tombs a naïve farm girl cries. "Please. I don't know where I am or how I got here."

For a moment I am filled with rage. The pompous ass! But if I am to save this world, destroy the Spire, and stop Lucien I need this Thief.

I try to smile reassuringly for the unfortunate woman and I silently vow to see her safely home. In full Knothole plate and almost twice her height I probably didn't come across as very comforting.

Across the dark emptiness three thrones of bone tower over an island of deepest black. The air shimmers and three cruel masks atop vague apparitions appeared. As one they intoned in a hollow voice that vibrated the walls and caused a terrible flutter in the heart, "We honor the pact. The totem is here and we accept the life of the bearer in exchange for renewing Reaver's youth."

I knew he was tricking me!

"But there are two and only one is required. Choose. Who will accept the bargain?"

The woman looks at me with renewed terror, "Please, I just want to go home." In his own sadistic way Reaver probably thought he was doing me a favor. This girl never would have survived to bring the totem here but now she could be sacrificed and I could return to the surface. He was a coward, though. This was just a chauvinistic bullshit way of saying I chose to be a sacrifice, he didn't trick me.

Turning to face the judges I stood upright and awaited their macabre trade. There was an odd awareness of prophecy in this foretelling a similar scene that would unfold in the near future.

Scream. A torture that almost surpassed all of those felt before. Colder than the deepest cave water like fire they seared my soul. Gone was my youth. I didn't carouse in taverns drinking strong drinks and gorge myself fat on delicious meat pies. But the one corruption I had allowed was vanity. I ensured my beauty would not be marred by scarring. Now, I was wrinkled, my joints wizened, my eyes shadowed by crow feet, and my beautiful dreadlocks white and pale as snow shorn of their natural auburn autumn glow.

"The pact is renewed. Tell Reaver we will come again, and if the sacrifice is not here we will return for him." They laughed maliciously with even more joy than the pompous Reaver. I'm sure he would be smiling posing for another portrait or statue with my vitality and beauty flowing through his veins.

Any sacrifice was worth it, I told myself. I will do anything that must be done to stop Lucien. Do I still feel that way?

Brought back to the present, I smiled wearily at the butler. Yes, I suppose my spirit could use rest.

The castle was every bit as incredible as Rose had imagined. A magnificent study I could not bear to look upon. It was forever marred by the gunshot that took her light and the sight of it diminishing from the outside as my body flew through the night into the cold winter air.

Oh Rose. Did we have to make that damn wish?

The library filled three floors lined with dusty tomes scribed in the old tongue and modern studies of ruins and anatomy. Cathedral ceilings warmed by a great hearth accompanied a great banquet table that sat thirty.

The largest tree I had seen dominated the courtyard and towered through the open roof. I walked past the solemn throne on the raised dais in a great room lined by towering marble pillars and stained glass windows. For centuries it would be lined with soldiers, sycophants and cheering but for now it was as hollow and dead as me.

Retiring to the velvet lined bed in my spacious quarters I laid my head on the regal bolster. Indeed the sleep was restful, refreshing and attempted to restore my spirit.

"Pardon me my Queen."

What? The butler? What time is it?

"Forgive me for interrupting your rest but we seem to be under attack by bandits? They slipped in through a secret passage in the library."

What? I jumped out of bed as countless thugs, ruffians and warlords charged into the room.

One jeered, "Your time has come Old Woman!" As another chuckled, "I heard she's loaded."

That is the last they would ever say. Their screams could not be heard as all oxygen was ripped from the room consumed in the inferno of my rage. My skin glowing blue as magic coursed through my veins I stepped over the ash and went to the closet. Invade my home? Bandits were a blight on the land. An example would be made of these fools.

Dressing in my formal funeral garb I withdrew the mask of Chasm with a smirk. Chasm had been a wannabe warlord or destroyer. I wasn't sure which. He had appeared in the center of a village amidst an evil portal and begun to monologue about his great evil and might. Village warriors shot him dead before he could finish. In the end Lucien had similarly attempted to nauseate me with his diatribe. I chuckled. I shot him before he finished his second sentence. Create a better world by destroying everything. It's idiotic. The reminder brought a deep cold and pain to my heart. The man had been a fool. But a fool with enough power and faith in his ludicrous notion to destroy everything that mattered in my life. Chasm's armour looked evil and kind of silly. I had added it to my collection but never donned the ridiculous suit of heavy plate. The mask, however, was solemn, macabre and perfectly fitting. Let the last sight of the interlopers who had the nerve to invade MY home be expressionless. Pitiless. I placed the mask over my face to hide the signs of pain.

Standing in the center of my throne room they surrounded me filling the entire spacious room. They were hesitant to approach afraid of what "the witch" could do with her old world blood. Fools. If I used magic they would all burn before they blinked. But they would feel this. I would crush their bodies and leave them shattered. I stood straight towering over all, my staff in hand, shrouded in the mourning cloth. A few took hesitant shots to test my nerve. Ground by my foot or flesh of my arm, I didn't flinch. I had conquered the Crucible breaking every record, I had faced the endless of hordes of Spire soldiers. These bandits weren't worth the bloodstain on my marble floor.

Body jumping into motion my scepter spun in my hands as I danced through horde. A whirling dervish of shattered bones and flying bodies I relished every scream. A masked bandit turned to flee with a scream of terror and I quickly swung the scepter over my shoulder shattering his spine. Trailing blood, brains and sinew I continued my endless spin flinging three more fools to the far side of the room. In all of the balls and masquerades held in this room in the centuries to follow no waltz would bring me as much peace as the dance of the shattered interloper. In my ears repeated the haunting words, "You're home mommy! Did you kill many monsters?"

Striding over a heap of mangled men I entered the library. The leader of the bandits was a giant, mighty man adorned with the great horns of a stag and wielding an axe. He almost stood as high as my breasts.

"Your time is over witch!" He vanished.

I wasn't fooled by his parlor trick and spun on my heel slamming the side of his face with the great scepter where he predictably reappeared behind me with an audible squish of eye ridge and cheekbone. My movements grew sluggish as he slowed time for all but him but he was still outmatched. Catching his axe with the heft of my staff I overpowered him and sent him to the ground very slowly. I ended his struggle to rise and silenced his bleating with my delicate formal black slippers.

Trailing blood I entered the secret passage in the library. Inside was a tomb lined with cells. Men, hobbes, balverines and other amusements for Lucien's twisted pleasure howled at me with anger and fear.

Tired. I just can't care anymore. Not bothering to investigate further I scoured the entire complex clear with magical fire and had the tomb permanently sealed.

Hear I sit on my raised throne my eyes dry and the pain borne with pride behind the mask of Chasm. Ruler of the land. Beggar in the street. Gypsy child. Greatest hero in Albion. In the silence I am never alone.

"Look little Sparrow. Castle Fairfax looks so nice in the snow. Imagine the grand dining hall. If only we could live there."


End file.
